July 4, 2013

Using a Smartphone's Eyes and Ears to Log Your Every Move

An app called Saga automatically records every place that a person goes. Now ARO's engineers are testing ways to use the barometer, cameras, and microphones in a device, along with a phone's location sensors, to figure out where someone is and what they are up to. That approach should debut in the Saga app in late summer or early fall. MIT Technology Review reports.

The current version of Saga, available for Apple and Android phones, automatically logs the places a person visits; it can also collect data on daily activity from other services, including the exercise-tracking apps FitBit and RunKeeper, and can pull in updates from social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Once the app has been running on a person's phone for a little while, it produces infographics about his or her life; for example, charting the variation in times when they leave for work in the morning.